RETURNING TO THE GYM
With the initial crisis averted, Lesnar’s body began to heal itself, and he returned to the gym to resume light training. It wasn’t easy.
“I didn’t feel good right away. It was all about baby steps. That’s why I got the right people in my camp,” Lesnar says. “Every day, every week I would have mini-goals to try and accomplish. I just took it one day at a time.”
“When I got the green light, when they told me I was going to get to keep on doing this, it was like a little steam locomotive,” he says. “We threw a little coal on the fire to get things going. The next week, we’d throw a little more coal on the fire, to pick up some steam. And now we’re here.”
The dietary changes Lesnar’s camp made following the illness have resulted in a leaner, more compact version of the champion than we’ve seen in the past. Lesnar will not be cutting any weight to reach the 265 pound heavyweight upper limit, a drastic change for a man used to cutting twenty or more pounds prior to weighing in. But Lesnar says the changes have been for the better.
“I definitely feel lighter on my feet. I brought (famed boxing coach) Peter Welch in, and he made some changes to my stance, from traditional to southpaw,” Lesnar says. “Being lighter has helped my wrestling and my shooting. We changed a lot of things, and I guess we’ll see if they work.”
Lesnar faces Carwin, the UFC interim heavyweight champion, on Saturday night in the main event of UFC 116. By any measure, Carwin is a mountain of a man, a fighter with impossibly large hands and the power to put an opponent to sleep with one solid shot. Carwin has wrecked nearly everyone in his path during his rise to the top, and no opponent has been lucky to survive the first round. His shellacking of former champion and Lesnar nemesis Frank Mir in March earned him the interim championship and secured a long-delayed bout with Lesnar.
It’s difficult to see the two fighters and not draw a comparison. Both have stellar wrestling credentials. Both fighters have raw power unlike any other heavyweight competitor, and both have brutalized past opponents. And both guys are hulking beasts who make other large heavyweights seem tiny by comparison. But Lesnar shakes off the comparisons.
“When I look at that guy, I just don’t see it. That’s you guys making the comparisons. I just don’t see it,” he says. “He hasn’t done the things I’ve done. He’s trying to do it, but I just don’t see it. Mir shouldn’t have even been fighting Carwin. You can’t unscramble scrambled eggs. I scrambled Mir’s eggs six months before that fight.”